A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

The HBO one season uncompleted series “The New Pope” ran a little over a year ago. It’s got an interesting premise – an ultra-conservative, highly traditional young American gets elected pope (choosing the name Pius XIII) by a confab of corrupt cardinals who think he will be a mere figurehead. There is much Machiavellian drama in little bits of the series I’ve seen, including numerous attempts by the corruptocrats in the Curia to get some dirt on the new pope and thus compromise and control him. This culminates in a young woman trying quite hard to seduce the pope, and failing.

At any rate, at some point in the series, the young pope who has held himself aloof not only from the world (refusing to perform public homilies or activities of any kind, or even to show his face) but even from the Curia, finally holds a little meeting with the cardinals, wherein he lays out his new program for the Church. In this, you could say, he proposes to turn the post-conciliar ethos on its head and set the Church on a radical new, but in many ways a very old, course.

The new pope is very mysterious to all, even, perhaps, to himself. He posits a return to Tradition and is loved by all the traditional priests, who form a sort of new coterie around the pope displacing parts of the existing bureaucracy. Most of these priests are quite young and devout, and make a marked contrast to the many corrupt bureaucrats occupying positions of power. Also dealt with are the infestation of sodomites deep into the heart of the Church.

The pope intends to use his aloofness, the mystery surrounding him, and his youth and physical attractiveness to the benefit of himself and the Church. There are intimations that he is saintly and can work miracles, and intimations that he might be insane. Or, perhaps, his mental prowess and sanctity cause him to behave in ways that people cannot comprehend?

Note the return of the sede gestatoria, fanon, and a sort of papal tiara, though one not nearly so grand as the old photos indicate.

Not sure if anyone’s seen this series, but late on a Friday afternoon when I have almost no time to post, I thought I’d give at least a little bit of Hollywood’s version of what a hardcore trad pope might mean. Let me know what you think from this little bit, and anything else you’ve watched.

Should I say, this guy looks positively dreamy compared to the current occupant? He sounds perhaps a bit severe and unyielding but after 50+ years of yielding to everyone and everything, perhaps that’s not such a bad thing? I can imagine such a pope as this might wind up like John Paul I.

I don’t think popes ever rode in the sede gestatoria standing like that.

From a short biography of St. Pius V, who took on leadership of the Church in a time of decadence, retreat, and widespread heresy amid the rising protestant revolution, and in a few short years managed to largely right the Barque of Peter and, more than anyone else, launched the Church upon the great revival known as the Counter-Reformation, which solidified the Church’s presence and mission in the world for nearly 400 years.

Pius V knew that one of the major reasons for the explosive growth of protestantism over the 50 odd years prior to his ascent of the Chair of Peter was doctrinal laxity in the Church, and a weak-willed spirit of compromise which actually revealed a grave lack of Faith in the Church and the Truths Christ reveals through Her. This lack of faith was most prevalent among the bishops and clergy, far too few of which had the wherewithal to fight the protestant heresies with all the myriad arms Christ supplies to His Church.

St. Pius V, thankfully, recognized the source of the crisis and took immediate and effective steps to rectify the situation. From pp. 27-29:

The deplorable state in which Pius V found the Church on becoming Pope made him apply himself with the utmost unremitting energy to getting rid of abuses and corruption. He had to deal with an inherited situation that might have seemed ruinous but for Christ’s promise that the gates of hell will never prevail. Repeated yieldings and compromises on every front had allowed protestantism to spread, with its negation of the supernatural, of the priesthood and the Sacraments; and it appeared to triumph in more and more places, affording proof that it was not so much authoritarianism as laxism that, by refusing to issue clear commands and set fixed limits, engendered false creeds, individual rebellion, and contestation.

Not only had feeble resistance to the innovators been offered by Emperor and Catholic sovereigns, but also, in spite of Trent, false hopes had continued to be entertained – it seems even by Pius V’s very predecessor – of winning protestants by making concessions to them regarding the rite of Communion, and ecclesiastical discipline. [How much that sounds like today! Note that all those efforts at conciliation failed miserably and only emboldened the protestants that they were in the right! So Yves Congar kneeling before a shrine to Luther during Vatican II – and the other numerous bows made to modernists/the world by himself and many others – were always doomed to fail – fail, that is, assuming one has the best interests of the Church and souls at heart. If one is a partisan of the world and error, then the modernists succeeded at VII and since likely beyond their wildest dreams]

The guiding principle in all that Pius V undertook was the exact and rigorous application of the decrees of the Council of Trent [and the Tradition of the Church]; and it was thanks to his determined energy that these decrees did not remain a dead letter, as those of some previous Councils, such as Constance and Lateran. The magnitude of Pius V’s achievement is moreover measured by the fact of his reforms having been successfully applied not only in Italy and Europe, but throughout the Catholic world then being expanded by the discovery of new continents………

…….[Pius V] reminded the Cardinals that not least among the causes of the spread of heresy was the lax and unedifying life led by many of the clergy and urged them all to do penance, avoid luxury, and reform their style of living………”It is an established fact,” he wrote to one bishop, that bad priests are the ruin of the people, and that odious heresy, introduced by force, has no other aim than that of corrupting the faithful.”…………

And, to show that there is nothing new under the sun, a bit more, from p. 33:

…….Abolition of priestly celibacy was advocated by Emperor Maximilian as a solution to the supposed dearth of vocations, and this solution was supported by certain of the Cardinals. Against this, Pius V unequivocally reaffirmed celibacy and at the same time the obligation of wearing clerical dress and the religious habit – for then, as now, attempts were being made in various ways to make the clergy lose their outwardly recognizable characteristics.……..[It’s all ultimately the same heresy, the same battle. Good vs. Evil. Light vs. Dark. Christ vs. satan.]

———End Excerpt————-

I find the example of St. Pius V very heartening, because, while things were probably not quite as bad during the height of the protestant revolution as they are today (there were still quite numerous/populous bastions of faith/orthodox belief then, today the rot is universal save a few isolated pockets of belief here and there), he does show how quickly one man, one very good, saintly pope, can turn things around. It may be God’s will that the Church be permitted to continue to suffer from horrific leadership and practical apostasy among most of the episcopate and clergy, but it may also be that His will can be moved to have pity on us by great efforts of prayer and penance.

Yes, I said atrocities. What else can you say when the man given the office of the Chair of Peter, chosen to be Christ’s sweet vicar on earth, accompanied by unimaginable torrents of Grace if he would only avail himself of them, instead of adhering to his own, stupid will, says that priests should butt out of people’s moral lives?

At a general audience after the conference, the Pope was asked about how to balance Church teaching on the indissolubility of marriage while welcoming Catholics who are divorced and remarried.

Francis replied that neither “rigorism nor laxity” was the right response. “The Gospel chooses another way: welcoming, accompanying, integrating, discerning, without putting our noses in the ‘moral life’ of other people,” he said.

Is that not an atrocious statement? Is it not, at some fundamental level, a profoundly anti-Catholic statement? No amount of burying our heads in the sand or attempts at explanation can even begin to limit the damage a statement like this causes.

In a sense, however, Francis is forced into such statements by his own ideology. If the divorced and remarried – living, in many cases, manifestly immoral lives, which much blame for the original divorce, and thoroughly lacking any real repentance in that regard – are to be allowed to receive the Blessed Sacrament, to carry on as if they ARE attempting to lead solid, moral lives, then of course priests would have to totally ignore the myriad moral failings of many of their sheep, and simply pretend that all is just peachy.

This is not Catholicism, however. It is straight up protestantism, as we saw last week. In order to continue his great project in remaking the Church in the light of Martin Luther and Immanuel Kant, such statements become inevitable. Confession goes out the window, unless it is “confession” for fashionable, worldly “corporate sins,” like poverty or supposed environmental degradation.

We also see just how banal and morally corrupt this “accompaniment” proclaimed by Francis really is. It’s nothing but “I’m OK You’re OK We’re All OK” encounter therapy writ large – a perfect embodiment of the progressive zeitgeist of which Francis is so fervent an acolyte.

But that’s not all! After all, there are seven days in a week, and Francis can apparently hardly let one go by without some assault on the Faith or another. To that end, Francis declared how he decapitates opposition from “ultraconservatives” and had some – for a change – interesting things to say about Pope Benedict’s unprecedented abdication:

When asked how he was getting along with the “ultra-Conservatives,” Pope Francis – without challenging this depreciative description of the ostensibly orthodox part of the prelates – claims that “they say ‘no’ to everything” in relation to his own proposed reforms. As reported by La Nacion, he more specifically says:

“They do their work, I do mine. I want an open and understanding Church which accompanies the wounded families. They say ‘no’ to everything. I continue my path without being sidetracked. I do not behead people [sic]. I never have liked it. Let me repeat: I reject conflict.” He [Pope Francis] concluded with a conspicuous smile: “You remove a nail by applying pressure upwards. Or you tranquilize them, put them to the side, when they reach retirement age.” [emphasis added] [Or you force them out, on thoroughly specious, if convenient, grounds, as in the case of Bishop Robert Finn, among others]

At least he had the wherewithal to admit, though not in so many words, that he views the most orthodox, “conservative” prelates as his ideological opponents, to be anesthetized as events permit.

Now, to those comments on Pope Benedict:

He was a revolutionary. In the meeting with cardinals, shortly before the March 2013 Conclave, he told us that one of us was going to be the next pope and that he did not know his name. His generosity was unparalleled. His resignation brought to light all of the Church’s problems. His resignation had nothing to do with personal issues. It was an act of government – his last act of government. [emphasis added]

Here, Francis appears to be slamming the door on the hypothesis of Archbishop Georg Ganswein, Benedict’s long-time aid, who recently posited that maybe there was a sort of duarchy working in the papacy with his boss’s abdication. That is, Francis was the “active” pope, while Benedict was the contemplative one. This is, of course, nonsense, and would completely obliterate the notion of papacy as it has always been understood by the Church. I was really shocked to read such doctrinal shlock from a guy like Ganswein who is supposed to be very bright and at least fairly orthodox – it only confirmed for me either how desperate the guy is, or how deep the rot has become.

Now, regarding Francis’ claim that Benedict’s abdication had nothing to do with personal issues – that certainly fits in with my surmise from the moment this abdication was announced. I also agree the abdication was a revolutionary act, in at least two senses. It was unprecedented, yes (Pope Celestine was a very different case), but it was also revolutionary in what it subsequently unleashed.

One could almost read from the above that Pope Benedict’s abdication was a final, deliberate surrender to the forces he had opposed for 40+ years, ever since the young, radical theologian at Vatican II realized the chaos and destruction he had helped unleash (thus, the “generosity”). From Francis’ standpoint, Benedict’s relative orthodoxy would have been the source of all the Church’s problems. His abdication, then, revealed the total failure of the restorationist project, in Francis’ mind, perhaps. Of course, it is very convenient for Francis to imply that Benedict’s last act was, indeed, a surrender to the progressive faction of the Church.

We’ll see if there are subsequent revelations. One thing progressives love to do is to gloat when victorious. That’s how we found out about the “St. Gallen group” in the first place. Is the above a little bit of revelation from Francis, or him just talking nonsense again? I have my own beliefs, obviously, but ultimately I leave it to you to decide.

I have another question for you readers – do you find the coverage of Francis helpful, maddening, pointless, or? I’m of two minds – while I feel we now know this man to a T, and further revelations may only serve to aggravate, at the same time, it’s hard to turn away from a car wreck, you know? Plus, it is important, at least for the record, for someone, anyone, to say “this is wrong,” or “this is not Catholic.” But, I don’t want to be boring, beat you down, or, God forbid, cause people to lose faith.

This is an important point, maybe too important to leave appended to the end of a long post. I may repost this as a stand alone tomorrow. I do appreciate your input. I can’t guarantee it will result in any change, but I will absolutely consider your comments seriously.

I am staking out no position by excerpting the below from St. Francis de Sales The Catholic Controversy (pp. 225-6). I read this yesterday, it is interesting, it is topical, and I think it is at least somewhat helpful. This is not an endorsement of any claim with regard to the status of the pontificate today or its present occupant. This is in fact a very high-level overview of an immensely complex and nuanced subject, so please bear that in mind. Those for and against claims of sede vacante can stack up piles of quotes from Saints and Doctors on both sides of the issue, and a combox on a blog is not a place where such issues can or will be resolved. Nonetheless, I’ll be watching comments closely, or at least more closely than usual [my comments]:

[W]e do not say that the Pope cannot err in his private opinions, as did John XXII, or be altogether a heretic, as perhaps Honorius was. Now when he is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church must either deprive him of, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See, and must say as St. Peter did, let another take his bishopric (Acts i). When he errs in his private opinion he must be instructed, advised, convinced; as happened with John XXII………But when he is clothed in pontifical garments, I mean when he teaches the whole Church as shepherd, in general matters of faith and morals, then there is nothing but doctrine and truth. [Until now? Amoris Laetitia and Evangelii Gaudium are magisterial documents, and many judge them to contain error. But not every word or phrase from even a magisterial document is magisterial. Are footnotes? These are issues beyond me. It will likely take a future pope, in a better age, to make these determinations. At least, that is my belief. The wheat will have to be separated from the chaff, and necessary distinctions made, I am certain of that. Whether that means Francis is pope or not, who am I to judge?]

….So everything the pope says is not canon law or of legal obligation; he must mean to define and lay down the law for the sheep, and he must keep the due order and form. Thus we say that we must appeal to him not as to a learned man, for in this he is ordinarily surpassed by some others, but as to the general head and pastor of the Church. And as such we must honor, follow, and firmly embrace his doctrine [when it is wholesome, I presume. At the very least, what the pope proposes as Doctrine cannot contradict what was held in the past, right? And thus the problem.] , for then he carries on his breast…….doctrine and truth. And again, we must not think that in everything and everywhere his judgment on a matter of faith in questions necessary to the whole Church, for in particular cases which depend on human face he can err, there is no doubt, though it is not for us to control him in these cases save with all reverence, submission, and discretion. Theologians have said, in a word, that he can err in questions of fact, not in questions of right, that he can err extra cathedram, outside the Chair of Peter, that is, as a private person, by writings and bad example. [So at some point Amoris Laetitia, or some of it, must be declared private, non-binding, or?]

But he cannot err when he is in cathedra, that is, when he intends to make an instruction and decree for the guidance of the whole Church, when he means to confirm his brethren as supreme pastor and to conduct them into the pastures of the Faith. For then it is not so much man who determines, resolves, and defines as it is the Blessed Holy Spirit by man, which spirit, according to the promise made by Our Lord to the Apostles, teaches all truth to the Church…….

———End Quote———-

Well, that had been quite safely the case for 2000 years, but now it is certainly open to question. I don’t see anyone in a position of authority in the Church today willing to hold the current pope to account…….thus my belief it will be quite some time before the crisis of this pontificate is dealt with, probably long after I’m dead. In the meantime, doctrine will suffer, millions will fall away, and hell shall be filled by so many lost snowflakes.

Well, at least there’s some good TV these days, so we have that going for us………

A bit of history: there once was a Jewish boy living in the former Papal States of Italy named Edgardo Mortara. This boy had a Catholic nanny. When the boy became extremely ill, the nanny secretly baptized him. Several years later, she revealed her illicit baptism in the Confessional. This began a whole chain of events that eventually led to Pope Pius IX – temporal AND spiritual ruler of the Papal States – “seizing” Edgardo Mortara and raising him as his own personal ward. While this “seizure” excited tremendous indignation at the time – the late 1850s – from the already dominant liberal ruling cliques of Europe, Edgardo Mortara became a happy and convicted Catholic, refused reversion to Judaism as an adult, and became a religious priest with a blessed apostolate. Mortara, for his part, remained grateful to Blessed Pius IX for his intervention for the remainder of his life (more details on the matter here).

However much such an act may seem shocking to modern, leftist-influenced sensibilities, raising a non-Catholic child according to the Faith (meaning he could not be raised by non-Catholics) – once a baptism/conversion has been made – was something that occurred numerous times in Church history, and was a fairly regular part of Catholic life from the fall of the Roman Empire period to the 19th century. Indeed, given that eternity is forever and salvation infinitely precious (and fragile), such an attitude makes eminent sense in light of constant Church belief regarding Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus.

What changed was not Church practice, but the attitude of the world toward the Church, as the noxious ideals of the Bastille and the American Revolution sank deeper and deeper into the consciousness of Western Civilization, the same ideals that have now all but consumed and destroyed the civilization established by Christendom. In reality, few of those supposedly so outraged at the time over the treatment the boy received cared a whit about him or his situation, he was simply a useful club with which to beat the Church in their grand project to overthrow Christendom and replace it with a secular liberal (ne: pagan) construct.

The Mortara case fell into obscurity shortly after the initial hubbub, except within Jewish circles, where it remained a cause celebre. It was obscure, that is, until the anti-Catholic Jewish historian David Kertzer published a book many feel is badly biased on the subject in 1997. This book, curiously timed with respect to the cause of beatification of Pius IX, which was finally consummated in 2000, caused an uproar of indignation in certain circles once that beatification was publicly manifested. Kertzer has written other hateful screeds alleging that Catholic popes played a significant role in the “rise” of anti-Semitism in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries and also in the rise in fascism in the 20s and 30s. That’s an interesting claim, given how coldly Pius XI treated Franco and the nationalist effort in Spain. I might also argue that since Jews frequently served as thought leaders and change agents for the liberal revolution of the 19th century, opposition to their ideals and policies indicates less anti-Semitism, than it does a zeal to preserve the moral, religious, and political order of Western Civilization in the first place! But I digress………

This case is interesting, in a sense, because Jews represent it as a clear-cut case of anti-Semitism. As the author of this piece notes, that’s a strange claim, since Blessed Pius IX hardly harmed or persecuted the boy, he committed the grievous “sin” of removing him from a false religion and gave him the opportunity to practice the One True Faith. In fact Pius IX served as a foster-father for the boy, insured his education, and was loved in return by Mortara. There’s quite a bit of anachronism going on in the hostile coverage this matter has received (and many contemporary complaints were quite hypocritical), where actions from a different time and place are criticized based on (faulty) modern-day sensibilities. At that time, the 19th century, it wasn’t unusual at all for a family to turn their children over to either a craftsman of some sort for training as an apprentice, or to a boarding school, or even service as an indentured servant (as several of my forebears experienced). The family made this trade, often losing contact with their child for years, in order to increase their chances of having a decent occupation/income or receive an education.

The real source of this claim of “anti-Semitism” on the part of Pius IX is this: since WWII and the Holocaust, which certainly happened, the cultural diktat supplied by self-anointed elites is this: “thou shalt not question, challenge or in any way undermine the Jewish religion in any way. Thou shalt also never seek to make converts of the Jewish faith or point out its faults and foibles.” We have seen this play out in the Church in the horrific turnaround in Church-synagogue relations which have developed since the disastrous Nostra Aetate and numerous statements from worldly prelates like Kurt Koch who pretend the Old Covenant is somehow still operative, as if Jesus Christ never existed.

At any rate, it is very disturbing that Señor Spielbergo is basing his new movie on Kertzer’s text. That almost insures a hostile attitude towards Blessed Pius IX in particular and the Church in general. In some sense, it could hardly be anything but, for the world of mid-19th century faithful Catholicism is as removed from today’s sick and fallen culture as far as the Earth is from Pluto. People today, especially those in elite liberal circles, are completely incapable of seeing the Christian religion as anything but an evil influence on society, or, at best, a quaint practice from a bygone day that must be forced into a small box of Sabbath services once a week. Thus, I fear with very good grounds that the Church and the very holy and good Pius IX will get pummeled in this latest cultural attack.

Having said that, Spielberg has generally been at least somewhat nuanced in his presentations of Christianity in the past, but the source material here is really bad, so I don’t know. I think we can rest assured Blessed Pius IX will not be cast as the hero. He will almost certainly be the heavy in the kind of simplistic morality plays of which Spielberg is so fond.

Amblin Entertainment, Spielberg’s own production company, is financing the film. No word yet on which studio will distribute the picture, which is set for release at Oscar season late next year.

10 years ago, when I was first becoming an active, committed Catholic (or trying to), I found the books of John Salza to be immensely useful. His “Biblical Basis” series was an excellent resource to help bring me from erroneous protestantism to a solidly formed Catholicism.

Since then, Salza and I have both become committed trads, him probably more so than me. Salza is now definitely in the SSPX camp, and doesn’t have too many kind words for the Ecclesia Dei communities. So while you could say I disagree with him on some points now, I remain very thankful to him for the role his works played in my conversion to a more robust practice of the Faith. I still think he’s one of the best, most thorough, most orthodox Catholic writers around. I have a great deal of respect for his views.

I say the above to provide a bit of context of where I’m coming from with respect to the videos below. They contain an interview of Mr. Salza by Brother Andre Marie of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the brother’s Reconquest internet radio show. In general, I found Salza’s analysis below spot on. At any rate, he is a serious scholar of theology and ecclesiology and is worth listening to, even if you don’t agree with every conclusion he makes. I would also note the irony of Salza appearing on this particular radio show, with this particular host, since the Slaves are often lambasted as “Feeneyites,” seemingly every trad-group’s favorite whipping boy. That’s something I admit I’ve never quite understood (I get the root error, but they profess to no longer maintain it). So here you have an SSPX-supporter dashing sede vacantism on a “Feeneyite’s” radio show!

A reader had asked me to summarize the content below. I wish I had the time today to do so, but I’m just about out. It took me 4+ hours to finish the post below, as I had so many interruptions (how can that nasty old work ever get in my way like that!?). For those who cannot watch the below for technical reasons, or because they don’t want to invest the nearly two hours, I’ll try to work on a summary, but these guys cover a lot of ground, including much of the 710 page content of Salza’s book on this subject (which I have not read)! That is to say, summarizing this long interview would be no easy task. But, I’ll see what I can do.

The interview, in two parts:

If you have comments on the interview, I’d love to see them. Thanks and God bless you!

Shocking, I know. This is strictly hearsay, but a priest who claims a long association, and confidant status, with Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI has claimed that the Pope Emeritus told him that not all of the Third Secret of Fatima was released in 2000. He also claims the excluded portion deals with apostasy/mass error at the highest levels of Church Authority.

See what you make of this (emphasis in original):

Today, on the Feast of Pentecost, I called Fr. Ingo Dollinger, a German priest and former professor of theology in Brasil, who is now quite elderly and physically weak. He has been a personal friend of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI for many years. Father Dollinger unexpectedly confirmed over the phone the following facts:

Not long after the June 2000 publication of the Third Secret of Fatima by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told Fr. Dollinger during an in-person conversation that there is still a part of the Third Secret that they have not published! “There is more than what we published,” Ratzinger said. He also told Dollinger that the published part of the Secret is authentic and that the unpublished part of the Secret speaks about “a bad council and a bad Mass” that was to come in the near future.

Father Dollinger gave me permission to publish these facts on this High Feast of the Holy Ghost and he gave me his blessing.

………This sensitive information pertaining to the Third Secret, which has been circulating among certain Catholic groups for a few years now, has now been personally confirmed to me by Fr. Dollinger himself, at a time in history where the Church seems to have fallen into a pit of confusion. It might help explain, at least in part, why we are where we are now.

Importantly, it shows the loving mercy of the Mother of God to warn us and to prepare her children for this battle that the Church now finds herself in. In spite of the decision of those in responsible places within the Church, She has made sure the fuller truth would still be revealed and spread………

There follows some discussion about how then Cardinal Ratzinger apparently contradicted himself with regard to the publication of the Fatima revelations in 2000, stating at one time that the entire secret had been revealed, and at another hinting that there were unrevealed portions.

I have personally long believed that the entirety of the Third Secret is yet to be revealed, and that the Consecration of Russia demanded by Our Lady is also yet to be properly done. The last is arguable, but that’s my personal sentiment.

Having said that, all these tales of revelations pointing to a “bad council and a bad Mass” tend to come from the mid-60s on, by which time concerns over both the most recent council and changes to the Mass were prevalent (and with good reason). That is to say, they tend to confirm a reality that was already in existence, so they are less prophetic than they are descriptive. I’m not certain the unrevealed portions of the Third Secret are quite so specific as to point to a “bad council and Mass.” My reading is that they pointed more to a general apostasy or crisis of faith within the leadership of the Church – something that was increasingly obvious to those who paid close attention to internal Church matters from the early 20th century on. After all, Pope Saint Pius X did not chase after bogeymen when he wrote Pascendi.

At this point, do we need a prophecy from the 1930s or 40s to tell us that there is a crisis in the Church, and that the crisis is especially prevalent among those in positions of authority? The evidence for this crisis has been overwhelming for decades now. Perhaps knowledge of this prophecy direct from Our Lord and Lady might move a few souls to accept the reality of the situation regarding the Church at present, but I’m reminded of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus even as I type this. If they won’t believe the accumulated evidence of the past several decades (and it is prodigious), why would they believe an “ancient” prophecy?

Well, make of it what you will. As for me, I don’t need any more convincing.

The third anniversary of the tragic abdication of Pope Benedict XVI was yesterday, but I still feel betrayed and massively let down. I remember my wife telling me the news, and at first I thought it had to be a hoax. I refused to believe it until the evidence became overwhelming.

I know some feel he had every right, that he alone could judge his age and capacity, but I am convinced Pope Benedict XVI was “forced out,” or fell to the wolves around him. His resignation remains unparalleled, the comparisons to Celestine being really apples and oranges. It was the seizure of Vatican financial assets that compelled him to believe he could no longer govern, I think. We’ll likely never know for certain, in this life.

I also cannot believe what happened later that same day was just “one of those things:”

In less than a year, Jose Bergoglio will be 80. But mark my words, he will never resign. He is having waaay too much fun remaking the Church to suit his ideology. Progressives almost never give up power voluntarily.

…….and the grave evil of placing oneself outside the Church in a schismatic and/or heretical sect. All the quotes below come from Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Satis Cognitum (1896). The Fathers quotes are identified in line. I add a few explanatory comments:

Origen writes: “As often as the heretics allege the possession of the canonical scriptures to which all Christians give unanimous assent, they seem to say: ‘Behold the word of the truth is in the houses.'” [I take this to mean something akin to protestant viewing a church as just whatever group of people who come together to worship the Lord, rather than the formal institution founded by Christ]

“But we should believe them not and abandon not the primary and ecclesiastical tradition. We should believe not otherwise than has been handed down by the tradition of the Church of God.” Irenaeus too says: “The doctrine of the Apostles is the true faith……..which is known to us through the Episcopal succession…….which has reached even unto our age by the very fact that the Scriptures have been zealously guarded and fully interpreted.” And Tertullian: “It is therefore clear that all doctrine which agrees with that of the Apostolic Church – the matrices and original centers of faith, must be looked upon as the truth, holding without hesitation that the Church received it from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ and Christ from God……..We are in communion with the Apostolic Churches and by the very fact that they [the many local churches] agree amongst themselves we have a testimony of the truth.” And so Hilary: “Christ teaching from the ship signifies that those who are outside the Church can never grasp the divine teaching; for the ship typifies the Church where the word of life is deposited and preached. Those who are outside are like sterile and worthless sand; they cannot comprehend.” [I really like that quote by St. Hilary of Poitiers]

Rufinus praises Gregory of Nazianum and Basil because “they studied the text of Holy Scripture alone, and took the interpretation of its meaning not from their own inner consciousness, but from the writings and on the authority of the ancients, who in their turn, as it is clear, took their rule for understanding the meaning from the Apostolic succession.”…… [Which is contrary to what the protestants have done, rejecting the Faith that has been handed on and searching the Scriptures, interpreted solely by themselves, for ways to justify that rejection. That is the critical point to keep in mind, with all the headstrong protestants (not those so much born into error and ignorant of it), they start from the position “Catholic = wrong” and search for justifications for that belief. They can be murderously dangerous to the poorly formed.]

……..In this wise, all cause for doubting being removed, can it be lawful for anyone to reject any one of those truths without by the very fact falling into heresy? – without separating himself from the Church? – without repudiating in one sweeping act the whole of Christian teaching? For such is the nature of faith that nothing can be more absurd than to accept some things and reject others. Faith, as the Church teaches it, is “that supernatural virtue by which, through the help of God and through the assistance of His Grace, we believe that what He has revealed to be true, not on account of the intrinsic truth perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God himself, the Revealer, who can neither deceive nor be deceived……..

……..In many things they are with me, in a few things not with me; but in those few things in which they are not with me, the many things in which they are will not profit them.

And this indeed most deservedly; for they who take from Christian doctrine what they please, lean on their own judgments, not on faith; and not “bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ,” they more truly obey themselves than God. “You who believe what you like of the Gospels and believe not what you like, believe yourselves rather than the Gospel.”…….

………It is then undoubtedly the office of the Church to guard Christian Doctrine and to propagate it in its integrity and purity. But this is not all, the object for which the Church has been instituted is not wholly attained by the performance of this duty. For since Jesus Christ delivered Himself up for the salvation of the human race, and to this end directed all His teaching and commands, so He ordered the Church to strive, by the truth and its doctrine, to sanctify and to save mankind.

———–End Quote———–

With regard to that last paragraph, is that what the large majority of the institutional Church has been doing since Vatican II – striving to convert, sanctify, and save the world? Is that what Francis is doing with his attacks – for that is what they are, whether he intends them to be so or not – on belief and practice that certainly impact doctrine?

The Church is alienated from herself. She is at war with herself. The outlook expressed in, say, Evangelii Guadium, and Satis Cognitum, are not just alien to one another, they are mutually exclusive. One might even say irretrievably opposed. How the faithful are supposed to reconcile all this is always left unsaid, except we’re just supposed to go along with whatever Rome says today, even if that contradicts what was said yesterday and will be contradicted twice again tomorrow. It is the way towards doubt, indifference, dissension, and collapse.

Once again, feature/bug, and all that.

But I thought some of those Church Fathers quotes on Church unity might be helpful, so……yay us.

So Church Militant TV has a new video up I both saw, and a reader sent to me, concerning a list of the top twenty most dangerous Catholics of the last 100 years.

UPDATE: Now, the list remains incomplete, only half has been released so far, but as I read it, I was quite surprised to find so few in the upper echelons of the hierarchy. The entire list is there if you take the survey. My mistake, I only read the article at Church Militant itself. So all the points made below stand. No popes listed, the names are heavily American, and almost no one in the curia or a major leader at Vatican II. For instance, Donald Wuerl is a politician, tends modernist (or is, whatever), and has given scandal on numerous occasions, but, really? Top 20 worst Catholics? Not even close. He’s nothing compared to some of the radicals in Europe, or some of those from the 60s-70s timeframe. To leave off Cardinal Martini is inexplicable to me. He’s the father of the current-day progressive wing in the Church. No de Chardin? No Congar? But bear in mind, some of those – de Chardin, Congar – received numerous plaudits from post-conciliar popes. Perhaps that played a role?

I’m struck by several things. For one, the list is overwhelmingly American. But many of the most destructive ideas have flowed out of Europe, and often, from high cardinals and others deeply entrenched at the highest levels of the Church. Most of the names listed here are priests, whose ideas, while certainly damnable, would not have had the impact they did had ecclesiastical authority not failed in its duty to discipline them or exclude them from the body of the faithful.

Now, the list is only half complete, so I’m hoping a whole slew of names – Martini, Frings, Alfrink, Bea, Congar, Suenens, Bugnini, etc., will make the list. Well, they didn’t. A list that does not include a number of the leading radicals from Vatican II – which includes those appointed by Paul VI to lead the Council – is woefully incomplete. And there are more top officials from today that I might include in my list – Koch, Schoenborn, Marx, Kasper…….basically the entire German episcopate.

But I’ll say something else. It is true that the crisis in the Church is a crisis of bishops. But who has appointed those bishops, and kept them in office, and even protected them, at times? If the list of “most dangerous Catholics” means those who have contributed the most to the crisis in the Church, can any list be complete that does not feature the names of Giovanni Montini and possibly Jose Bergoglio?

Look, I understand CMTVs editorial views. I know they are loathe to criticize any pontiff, especially the post-conciliar ones. I understand their viewpoint, even if I think it erroneous.

Having said that, from what limited study I’ve done of Vatican II, I am unable to conclude otherwise than that Pope Paul VI got the Council he wanted, more or less. John XXIII set the tone, but it was Paul VI who packed the all-important leadership/management with the Council almost entirely with thoroughgoing progressives. It was Paul VI who decided, at virtually every important logjam, in favor of the progressives, at least until the very end, when their excesses began to surprise and shock even him. And it was Paul VI who unleashed the Novus Ordo and deliberately put forth the notion that the TLM was abrogated, to the point of persecuting those priests who refused to go along. I could go on, HJA Sire and others have thoroughly criticized the pontificate of Paul VI in quite harsh terms.

Since the Council, with some exception for Benedict XVI, the dominant liberal interpretation of it has been allowed to stand, and even be promoted, by every pontiff of the intervening period, at least by silence and inaction if not by actual promotion (which, of course, has frequently occurred, as well). But you know all this already.

So I guess the question is…….can a list of the most “dangerous” Catholics of the last 100 years be complete without including any popes? Or is it tending too much towards scandal, with the wide audience CMTV has, to say so? (I tend to take more liberties, as I regard my readership as generally very well formed and steadfast, and able to stand “sterner stuff”).

And what of the many non-Americans/fathers of Vatican II who have contributed most to the collapse? And no Tielhard de Chardin? No Anibale Bugnini?

Nevertheless, while argument over who should be included could go on forever, I think the basic idea, to identify by name some of the most damaging Catholics of recent years is a pretty good one. While you or I might already be aware of most or all of these folks, many are not. It’s helpful to get those names out there. Who else would you have on your list?